SITA P2: Scarlet Fields

Helian stood at the apex of the fields, staring down at the vibrant scarlet grass surrounding the dark spiraling tower. Many of the party had already descended into the fields with Angea to hunt the ink blots, however she stayed to observe. The satyr merely felt the need to observe the situation in its entirety. In all her years of travel, one could never be too sure of what the hunt could contain, and with what Cteno had said she wanted to consider their task to be just as dangerous as the other one. she more than intended to catch up with the kitbull after he wrapped up assisting here.

For a moment, she considered readying her bow and notching an arrow, but looking down below at all the others attempting to catch the ink dropped the thought. They seemed to so easily evade capture by their semi liquid form, oozing away from attacks and easily slipping from capture if given enough space. Her head tilted to the side as she began to consider just what would be needed to trap them when in the distance, she saw someone hold up a glass jar. From here, she could not hear the prideful declarations but she could see that inside the jar that it was dark. So someone had managed to capture one after all, at the very least she was well equipped to capture this way as well.

With a capture method ensured as well as the ink blots seeming to not be dangerous in any capacity, she debated returning to Cteno to assist with the creature they were after. However... This would not occupy much of her time, and she was confident that they all could capture the blots and then catch up with Cteno before they became too preoccupied with their beast. Helian descended from her vantage point, unclasping her cloak as she did so. It flowed as it caught the wind, flying like a radiant flag caught tightly in her grasp.

With a firm and rough shake, the fluffy brown cloak flourished, scattering some of the leaves caught in it before forcing the grass in front of her out of the way with a forceful gust. This revealed some rather interesting looking ink creatures that quickly skittered away, indicating to her that they were inherently skittish. At least, that is what she thought at first but when observing up the hill they seemed more playful and mischievous than anything. Helian however did not give in to the chase, at least not yet, as exciting as it sounded. With a straight face, she gripped her cloak and swung it back through the grass before forcing the momentum upwards. 

She was sending the gust of wind up into the air when one of the creatures, mocking the form of what appeared to be a drigeon, was revealed by this action. It seemed to fuss and panic in the air, perhaps as she assumed that unlike an actual drigeon, it likely could not fly. While it seemed suspended in the air, Helian quickly unclasped an empty vial from her belt and with ease caught the falling creature inside of it. As soon as the lid was firmly sealed, she took a moment to get a good look at it. From a distance, it would have been pretty convincing as a swan drake of some kind, however upon close inspection Helian could tell that it was far from the case. 

Helian noted that its form was very unstable, constantly shifting and bubbling. How a creature could ooze so much but not melt away into a puddle confused her. There had been very little of this world that she had not seen, but this particular city baffled even her at every turn. Her brows furrowed as she shifted the jar in her hands, trying to observe it more without paying too much attention to the puppy dog-like eyes of the drigeon staring right at her. A heavy sigh escaped her as she reclasped the vial back to her belt loop and looked around.

This method was sufficient in a sense, but it was far from efficient. She assumed that her prey would soon become wise to this tactic and take measures to stay out of the reach of her cloak. While she considered her options, she returned her cloak to her body. After a moment she reached into her bag, fishing around for a moment before pulling out what appeared to be a Crabbit… Because it was a crabbit.

Helian held it by its blue shell with her fingers mostly resting on the pink crevices of the conch like shape. The crabbit did not come out immediately, but when it did it dangled its little mint arms out, wiggled them a bit, then finally poked its head out. It’s ears flopped forward before those blue and pink eyes peered up so innocently at the satyr. Helian took their other hand to gently rub the companion's head before approaching a rock and setting the Crabbit on top of it. It stuck out its tongue, making raspberries and beginning to feel around the scarlet moss with its tiny hands.

Helian took a moment to observe the silly behavior with perked up ears before undoing her cloak once more. This time however Helian stretched it out, fussed with it, then hunkered down with it wrapped over her body. Though the brown colors were likely to make it stand out amongst the vibrant grass, they hoped it would be good enough to fool sentient ink creatures. Within this bush-like disguise, the satyr had begun to set up open glass jars from their inventory with the lids near by for quick grabbing. Her ears were busy listening closely to the sounds of her crabbit blowing mouth bubbles and making noises. When those noises paused, however, and the sound of pittering feet made their appearance, Helian would shoot a single hand out of the bushy disguise, a tactic she was able to employ moments later when this exact scenario occurred.

Her normally stoic expression distorted into what could only be described as either discomfort or disgust when her hand grasped around… warm ink. There was no time to stay in this state for long, for if the hesitation stretched too far the creature would likely slip through her fingers just as the other ones had been doing to the others attempting to catch them by her side. Swallowing her disgust, Helian quickly pulled the creature into her cloak and plopped it into the jar. This was soon followed by the lid that was tightly screwed on top of it. As soon as the lid had been put on, Helian could hear the crabbit begin to make more noises behind her. Silly creatures, and here she had been briefly worried that it would only be good for doing this once. It wasn’t as easily spooked as she had been concerned it might be. 

Regardless, she was sure this tactic would also outgrow its use eventually, however in the meantime she would make the best of its usefulness in the moment instead of immediately switching as she had just done before. So, for much of the time in the scarlet fields, she worked using the crabbit as bait for her traps. She had managed to obtain four more ink creatures before finally deciding she had made the most of this tactic. She stood, tucking the jars into her bag before picking up the Crabbit. Helian gave it a supportive stroke on the head before returning it to where she had been keeping it prior. After that, she went back to using her cloak by itself a few more times. She had only managed to catch two more ink creatures this way, finding that it took more energy to fling them into the air and rush to trap them during their fall, similar to what it might be to chase them but with more precision and focus. 

Helian found herself sighing once more, standing in the red fields with her arms full of glass jars, all of which containing big inky puppy dog eyes staring up at her. It was almost unnerving to a point, which might have been indicated by the single bead of sweat on her temple. Though that deadpan face was good for something and that was not letting things show that they bothered her in any capacity. Now that everything seemed settled for the most part, Helian approached the pillar in the middle of the field.

She passed by Angea, who gave her a puzzled glance, but she did not stop to chat or anything like that. They climbed the circular rings up to the base of the pillar before beginning to set down the glass jars. She made sure they were neat and put together, as well as not being easily knocked over in any way. It would really be a pain to go through and catch them all again if for some reason they got out. As they were now settled, Helian dusted her hands off against each other before putting her hands on her hips. There was a decent collection, and upon turning her head to look back out on the field she was able to analyze the others' work.

By the looks of it, others had made their own piles around the size of hers or a little less. At least, that was all she could tell from beside the pillar. Many people were still chasing creatures around, though she was confident that they would soon catch the target of their attention and chase. Angea for the most part, bless her heart, seemed to be attempting to assist the others in some way, running through them in the fields or hiding nearby to have the creatures cornered into a jar. Perhaps that is how they were able to obtain as many jars as her while expending much more energy to do so. 

Helian shook her head and then sort of began to circle around the Pillar to check the other side of the field. As she did so however, she felt her fingers graze over the engravings on the dark stone itself. This gave her pause, and she turned her head with furrowed brows to observe just what exactly it was. It appeared to be… names. This seemed to be what had fascinated Angea when they first arrived to the fields initially, though she herself had not been close enough to see what Angea was examining about the pillar. Perhaps it had to be a memorial of some kind, after all from what she had heard the red clovers had something to do with death did they not? She had a feeling that the red all over the city was an inherent sense of mourning despite the rather comfortable nature of the city's inhabitants. 

The carvings were starkly contrasted against the dark stone, not just in their texture but also in their slightly paler color that really made them pop to her attention. She started to trace them with her fingertips, lost in the silent intimate moment of learning the names of long ago strangers. There was something enthralling about it, the way the names appeared to span all the way up to the pillar just to how opposed in color it was to the rest of the field. It made her wonder what the real purpose of it was, and while she had her own ideas getting the exact truth of the matter could easily be something completely different. That led her to wonder how the pillar was constructed, as from a distance it seemed to be one whole piece, and while that might be the case when looking at it up close it seemed so segmented.

A soft sigh left her lips as she retracted her hand from the cold pillar, snapping back to reality after her moment of ponderance. Once more she turned her blue and yellow gaze out to the scarlet fields and those skittering around after the ink creatures they were tasked with capturing. All of this infatuation with the nature of the pillar distracted her from the hunt at hand, though it would be impossible to tell her embarrassment based on her plain expression. Though, perhaps if you had been looking just close enough at the right moment, you may have noticed that the corner of her mouth twitched.

Helian shook her head and smoothed out her outfit a couple of times, gathering herself mentally to rejoin the chase. There was no sense in dwelling for too long about what had captured her attention, for there was work to be done before her. She removed her cloak, laying it over the pile of glass jars containing the ink creatures she had captured, then set her bow beside it. She descended from her place by the pillar and into the fields, eying around at the running people.

There was a moment of pause once more, and she stood there before she took off into the field. She ran with incredible speed into the grass, cutting off a creature and scooping it up into her hands. Her ears instinctively pinned back, indicating her disgust once more but she quickly plunked the creature into the glass jar of the original person chasing the ink creature. Before she could even be thanked, she took off again, repeating her actions close to what she had just done. That is how she helped wrap up the mission, jumping over rocks and running through the fields. Overall to her, it was a very successful hunt, as all of the ink creatures were captured in a timely manner. Helian, anxious to see how Cteno was doing, made sure that everything in the fields was secure before racing off to find the kitbull.